How is the “Prosperous New Year” looking for your organization?

For me, each New Year brings a sense of excitement and wonder about what the year ahead holds. It’s a new chapter with a crisp blank page. But, before I begin writing this new chapter, I assess last year. What lessons I learned, where did I grow, what changes do I need to make to make this year better?

For most health systems, the New Year is the beginning of a new fiscal year, or the beginning the second quarter. Either way, now is a good time to assess – or reassess – how your organization is fairing with accomplishing the strategic plan and/or meeting budget.

If you are like many of the organizations we are working with, your physician organization is the one area that needs some major assessment and/or changes to make this a “Prosperous New Year.” This may seem a daunting task.

To give you a starting point on determining the health of your physician organization, here are three quick assessments:

Target Yield vs. Actual Yield to see how much money you are actually collecting versus your target or expected collections for services provided. Once you know this, then you will have a good idea of the health of your revenue cycle and the potential gap in revenue for the same-store services.

Actual collection rates per wRVU or RVU Target rates that are adjusted for payer mix will help to determine the potential gap in actual performance compared to viable targets and the additional revenue improvement opportunity for the practice.

Actual wRVU productivity per physician compared to benchmarks to see where there may be additional provider capacity when compared to benchmarks and opportunity for additional practice revenue.

Finally, if you’re like me, then you want to keep momentum in a positive direction – or figure out early how to make the new year a better one than the previous. For physician organizations, there are a few things leadership can evaluate and/or build on each year to keep moving in a positive direction:

Review physician compensation structure to ensure that:

Physicians have more “skin in the game” for the organization’s overall success

There is flexibility in the provider agreement to evolve the structure as the market or reimbursement changes

The system and the physicians are aligned on incentives for things like patient satisfaction and provider participation

Stay focused on the fundamentals of revenue cycle management – a new year, may mean some refreshers are needed or processes should be evaluated

Manage referrals by taking a poll of how well your physicians know each other and make an effort to reengage them with socials, CMEs, etc.

How does your organization fair when compared to the above?

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If you would like an independent analysis of your physician organization, JHD Healthcare Partners has a quick, low-cost assessment to provide you with a snapshot of the overall health of the entire physician organization. Click here for more information on how our Blitz assessment is conducted.